When you are impacting another, you are impacting spirit, and spirit is real. Since spirit is real and enduring, by affecting another person’s experience, you are “impressing upon” that which is real. You are having a real effect. This is in contrast to simply moving around the “props” of the physical simulation (the objects or forms) which are, generally speaking, local and transient.
The real spirit is interested in real impact. This is partly why from the perspective of the Big Picture, the success of our physical lives is not determined by our physical accomplishments or possessions, but rather by how much we were able to love others. Loving intention and interaction is successful in part because it is furthering real change in the direction of our native state, which is unified and whole. That change is far more powerful than it may seem on the physical surface! In fact, since the spirit is multi-dimensional, by impacting another, you are always having an effect on multiple dimensions.
This is important to remember in a society that is obsessed with physical accomplishment, the allocation of objects, and the acquisition of temporary identities. Our society spends (we spend) a huge amount of energy focusing on the transient and pursuing the substanceless distractions of possession and identity. Yet we can remind ourselves of that distraction. We can remind ourselves of our inalienable power to make a true, lasting impact: by loving the person next to us! The genuine intention to love the person next to us, however we can, is all that is required to make an impact that lasts forever.
A Walk in the Physical 